Over the course of time I have had conversations with people who believe the government, primarily first responders will be there when something happens, this gives them a reason to not take any steps to prepare on their own. A few quick searches on the internet should be enough for most of us to understand this is not always the case. For those of us in areas where the government, at any level, does not provide for first responders you already understand this.
Let's say the tornado or storm rips through your area, luckily no one you care for needs immediate assistance from the first responders. What do they do? They move on to people who do need their assistance. What else can you expect from the first responders? Simply getting on the web and doing a search will tell you in the agencies own words what most people do not want to consider, you are on your own for a while:
From the FEMA website, I highlighted the relevant section
"BUILD A KIT
A disaster supplies kit is simply a collection of basic items your household may need in the event of an emergency.
Try to assemble your kit well in advance of an emergency. You may have to evacuate at a moment’s notice and take essentials with you. You will probably not have time to search for the supplies you need or shop for them.
You may need to survive on your own after an emergency. This means having your own food, water and other supplies in sufficient quantity to last for at least 72 hours. Local officials and relief workers will be on the scene after a disaster but they cannot reach everyone immediately. You could get help in hours or it might take days.
Additionally, basic services such as electricity, gas, water, sewage treatment and telephones may be cut off for days or even a week, or longer. Your supplies kit should contain items to help you manage during these outages."
http://www.ready.gov/build-a-kit
In some literature this time period has been upped to as many as five days!!! The government is telling you what to expect from them. The minimum amount of time you can expect before the government even claims to be able to help you. And the time frame when you can not get upset by the lack of 'help'. Agencies people think they are going to count on in their time of need are already giving you the reasons why they will not be there to help you and your loved ones BEFORE anything has even happened!
Let that idea sink in for a minute………. What if your health insurance provider told you the same thing? “Sorry we will not be able to assist you for at least three days. Yes we understand you broke your arm but you have to take care of it for three days before we can even claim to be ready to help you.” If you could odds are you would change your provider, right? For us we have a choice and change our “provider” for emergencies. We can change the provider to ourselves! This way we do not become another statistic on a spread sheet somewhere in a government office.
Now to be fair to the government workers out there, they have to follow rules and at times those rules do not allow them to do what needs to be done in a timely manner. The guy in the warehouse cannot let supplies go until his supervisor tells him to and the proper form is filled out. Why? Because she/he does not want to lose their job when everything is said and done. They have family to feed also. Their supervisor won’t fill out the form or tell them to release supplies from the warehouse until their manager tells them it is alright and they present the supervisor with the proper form. Of course the manager will not tell them to release the supplies until the executive level person above them is told all of the factors revolving around the present situation have been taken into account, along with any mitigating circumstances the manager may not be aware of have been brought into the conversation and only after all concerns have been address in the committee meeting, at which a joint decision will be reached in regard to the appropriate response the agency should deploy in order to properly assist with, in keeping with the mandates of the agency and maintaining a positive impression with the laws regulating the response of the agency to the situation which might or might not require a response from the agency. Of course none of this can take place until such time as the director of the agency has been directed to formulate a response to the crisis by the chief executive officer overseeing the agencies delegated with the responsibility to respond to situations which they have been organized to provide, if required, responses to. If you are confused after reading all that try working in an environment where all of this makes sense!
Logistical the response you can expect from any agency is going to be slower than what you might think it should be if you are the one needing assistance. Especially if you are a parent and are forced to watch your children while they suffer. Trucks only drive so fast, planes can only fly so fast and lines only move so fast. Some issues simply cannot be changed by wishing they were different. In any situation supplies along with aid have to come from some area outside the affected area. The larger the incident the further away the aid has to come from.
Reality check!!! When the people bringing the aid are deciding where the aid goes first they do not care about you! Your family is not the first people on their list to help no matter the situation. In large scale incidents the people directing the response do not see individual people; they look at the larger picture. If they can deliver water to a hundred people by driving the truck past your house they are going to. They are thinking about larger numbers of people and in the end five is a smaller group to lose than 100. Sorry this is the reality of the situation. Sure they would love to be able to help everyone but it would be impossible to give each person involved this level of personal care. Aid workers have to deal with large groups of people only in smaller scale scenarios could you ever hope for the personal level of service most people want during large scale emergencies.
Given the agencies flat out tell you, you are on your own for several days we should think of any aid as supplementing what we have already set aside. If we believe the cavalry is going to come over the hill and save the day we have only ourselves to blame when we are hungry, homeless and desperate! Never count on others to take care of you and your family. You have to take care of yourselves first and foremost.
Any time a disaster happens there are good people in the government working hard to bring aid to those people in need. These people must wait for the red tape to be taken care of before they can do anything which might help. After the red tape is dealt with they have to deal with logistics. Something they can do very little about at the end of the day. Physics dictate how fast supplies can be moved and not governments. When planning we must take into account this reality, we must provide ourselves with the supplies and skill sets to survive until help can supplement what we have already provided ourselves with.
As Always,
Stay Safe!
